The interesting thing about the question we face ahead is that we've had a lot of confusion about what the purpose of this plane is going to be. The reality is that we're buying this plane for the next 20 or 40 years. The threats that we face today are not the threats we'll face tomorrow. The real questions when we look at this plane are: what are the long-lasting threats, and what are the long-lasting commitments that Canada has?
I have been very ambivalent about the F-35 project because it is incredibly expensive and the development process in the United States has made Canadian defence procurement look like it's actually not that problematic, because the F-35 has had all kinds of controversies about what it is and how expensive it's going to be, and all the rest. But I think the enduring reality that Canada faces is both as a member of NORAD and as a member of NATO. One of this plane's key selling points, as far as I understand it, is its interoperability.
What we've seen over the past 20 years in Canadian efforts in the world is that Canadian planes don't fly alone. They fly as part of other missions. So they flew to drop bombs on Serbia and Kosovo, they participated in the Libyan mission, and they're now participating in the reassurance package in eastern Europe. These are all part of NATO. So it does make sense that whatever plane we purchase interoperability be a fundamental feature of the plane. I think some of the competitors are actually pretty good at that, but there are various arguments we have for the various planes.
I do think interoperability is fundamental because Canada will never have enough capability, enough planes that is, by itself to thwart any menace besides the random one plane flying over the Arctic from Russia. But in any real crisis, it's not going to be one plane.